


Need

by winterover



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Biting, M/M, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Meld, Multi, Pon Farr, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:27:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterover/pseuds/winterover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Bones are about as ready as they can be for Spock's first <em>pon farr</em>. Early established threesome, still working through various things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Need

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Need  
>  **Fandom:** Star Trek (reboot)  
>  **Pairings:** Kirk/Spock/McCoy and all variations thereof, mention of past Spock/Uhura  
>  **Rating/Warnings:** Rated Adult for sex, language, and all that _pon farr_ entails, including a bit of violence/blood and dubcon. Oblique but major spoilers for _Star Trek Into Darkness._ Cuddles. Angst. Mind melds. Penises!  
>  **Word Count:** 7708  
>  **Disclaimer:** Don't own it, not profiting from it, just playing with it.
> 
> This was started literally years ago based on a kink meme prompt, and I don't write as often anymore, so it may be a little uneven. Un-betad, apologies for any typos.

*

It is 0157 hours. Clad in a t-shirt and sweatpants, Jim jogs on quiet feet through the deserted corridors of D-deck and lets himself into Spock's quarters. He peers around the room divider and smiles nervously at Bones, who is sitting cross-legged in his boxer shorts on the end of Spock's bed, monitoring his vitals with a medical tricorder. The lights are slightly dimmed, and Bones has lit a coil of Spock's preferred kind of incense in the simple copper holder that hangs in one far corner, perfuming the room with a whiff of heavy, rich spice that tickles Jim's nose. Jim had never had the chance to actually set foot on Vulcan, but the smell makes him think of the desert, of the sun-warmed cliffs and ochre skies of Spock's birthplace.

“Everything's set,” he says, raising his voice slightly so Bones can hear him as he thumbs the door control to activate the lock. It's already been set up to open from the inside only on his or Bones' orders. Spock had thought it best. “We're in orbit, Darwin has the conn, and Scotty's taking over for the day shift at oh-eight-hundred,” he continues, checking that everything is secure - no objects left out to be damaged or used as weapons, chair and desk magnetically grounded - before entering the bedroom space. “He, Uhura and Sulu are gonna alternate for the next forty-eight, rack up some command hours while things are quiet.”

“M'Benga and Tracy are holding things down in the medbay for as long as we need,” says Bones, stroking Spock's dark hair back from his forehead. Every exposed inch of Spock's body - face, chest, arms, the rest hidden under a gray thermal blanket - is covered in a light sheen of sweat, and he's lying as still as the dead, a sallow flush to his cheeks. Jim approaches and touches his knuckles to the back of Spock's left hand - the skin there is burning fever-hot, and the veins are standing out, close to the surface.

“He doing all right?”

“He was already exhausted, and it hasn't even really started yet. His systems are working overtime. I gave him a strong sedative to calm him 'til you got here, but it doesn't look like it'll last much longer.” Brow furrowed, Bones nods toward the bedside table, where his medkit is resting, opened, a half-empty pouch of medical-grade lube sitting on the top like an invitation. “I'm done with that. You need to prep?”

“Already did.” Jim wiggles his hips and forces a grin, though he knows it probably isn't convincing. He can't say he isn't anxious about this - hadn't even _heard_ of this _pon farr_ stuff until three days ago, when Spock had quietly come to each of them separately one day to inform them of the warning signs he was feeling, leaving it up to the two of them to convene and discuss it. Bones had heard vaguely of it once from a wizened old space veteran he'd worked under at Emory University, but there is no official Starfleet record they can access of a Vulcan actually experiencing it. Hints, rumours, hearsay. Periods of excused absence with little explanation. The condition is kept so secret, it isn't even mentioned in the standard xenomedical texts.

Spock's admission had been...concerning, to say the least. His unusual reticence about it, his unwillingness to speak to both of them at once as if he feared their combined judgment, even more so. That night Jim had had a long talk with Bones, whose dark fearful eyes scared him more than all the clinical language in the galaxy about fevers and hormones and biological cycles ever could. And the next evening, with Bones' blessing, Jim had ordered dinner for two brought to Spock's quarters and offered, in a voice worthy of a captain but a sick feeling of impending loss in his stomach as he pushed the tofu and vegetables around his plate, to take the _Enterprise_ to the colony, let Spock beam down and find a Vulcan mate and do the whole ritual thing. Marry. Bond with someone the way he was supposed to, the Vulcan way. Not die.

Spock had refused, fine tremors running through his normally steady hands as they curved around a glass, grip light as if he were afraid the slightest pressure might shatter it. "The concept of 'finding a Vulcan mate' is not as simplistic as that. As is the concept of _pon farr_ in general. It is...difficult to comprehend. Perhaps even more difficult to explain." He'd looked up then, and if ever a Vulcan could look nervous, Spock had. “No doubt the elders would not consider our - relationship - particularly efficient, but I have what I need here. If you and Leonard are willing to provide it. It may be dangerous -”

Spock had never asked them for anything before, not like that, his cheeks mottled with an emotional shame that had seemed to twist its way into Jim's heart. Jim had leaned across the table and cut him off with a relieved kiss, promising that of course he and Bones would take care of him, everything would be fine, there would be nothing to worry about. And so here they are. Blood fever, loss of all emotional control, mate or fight or die, every seven years. _Pon farr_ number one. The idea both scares and exhilarates Jim; he thinks about the time not so long ago when Spock had almost strangled him to death over a console, more than a touch of madness in his eyes, and shivers as he thinks of all that strength and passion channeled into sex - well, not even _sex._ With all he's heard about what's going to happen, that doesn't seem like quite the right term, because Jim Kirk is twenty-seven and he's loved and lost and cried and _died_ and 'sex' means a certain something different to him now, something that ideally involves neither fear nor detachment. _Fucking_ , then. They'll be fucking. Him, Bones, Spock, all of them together, until the fever burns itself out and Spock is his old logical self again, with his beautiful rational eyes and the arch little quirk at the corners of his mouth.

As if he's aware Jim is thinking of him - maybe he is, somewhere - Spock's eyelashes flutter, and Bones looks up at Jim, the expression on his face matching the knot in Jim's belly. At least neither of them is alone in this. He holds out the tricorder, and Jim takes it. The casing feels sticky. Bones almost never gets clammy hands, it isn't optimal for a doctor, but now... “Better stick my medkit in the cabinet. I don't want stuff flying everywhere - we're probably gonna need those supplies.”

Jim does as he's told, then touches Bones reassuringly on the shoulder before backing off a few steps - they've agreed that one-on-one is probably the less complicated way to do this, at least to start out with, since they don't want to antagonize him or make him feel cornered. Spock is slowly beginning to come out of the sedation, long hands twitching, murmuring unintelligibly through dry, barely-parted lips. Bones uncurls his legs and crawls up over Spock's body, his overlong bangs flopping down like a brown curtain without the usual product keeping them neatly and stiffly in place.

“Sure you should be up in his face like that, Bones?” Jim says doubtfully, and Bones glances at him just once before lowering his mouth to Spock's ear.

“Spock,” he says, voice firm.

Spock's eyes pop open, and Bones kisses him on the mouth, softly. Jim watches, chewing anxiously on his lower lip. “I'm here,” Bones says, drawing back, in a gentler tone than before, and Spock's hands spasm on the bed, fingers curling. “Jim's here, too. You're in a safe place. We're gonna see you through it.”

Spock is breathing heavily now, hands closing white-knuckled around fistfuls of the gray blanket, and when he looks at Bones, Jim can see even from his vantage point that his expression is feverish and unfocused. Bones leans down again, and this time, he lets Spock take hold of him, hands going around his waist, angling their faces to deepen the kiss. The only warning sign is Spock's fingers digging in, hard enough to make Jim wince as he watches - then he flips Bones onto his back and rolls on top, pinning his wrists to the mattress on either side of the pillow, growling as their bodies twist and the blanket tangles around their legs. “My eyes are flame,” he mutters, cracked and desperate like he has to get it out, his mouth moving restless over Bones' face, their noses bumping. “My heart. Please.”

Bones makes a muffled sound of confusion, but his hips cant upward and he spreads his legs, quickly kicking the blanket down to the foot of the bed and out of the way, as Spock grinds down against him. Spock was naked already and now he's fully hard, the muscles in his back and ass and legs rigid like iron, skin a startlingly milky olive-white and Bones under him a ruddy golden tan in comparison. Jim backs up further and collapses into the chair in the corner, dizzy from the sight of them and the abrupt rush of blood down from his head, filling out his cock. He's usually too close to the action to appreciate a view like this, and fuck if he isn't going to savor it this time. Bones with his legs open like that, wanton, letting himself be effortlessly held immobile - it's unlike him, but for now he's pliant and testing the waters, letting Spock do what he will.

Jim palms his erection through his sweats, trying to keep his arousal on a low burn. Conserving his energy would be the smart course of action, and if there's one thing people have always insisted on hammering into his brain, it's that he's smart. Spock seems undecided still, moving his hips in a slow circle, biting at Bones' neck and shoulders and then licking the pinkened spots as though the taste of Bones' skin is revealing something profound. He still has Bones' wrists lightly pinned - Jim doesn't know if, with Spock's strength and clouded mind complicating matters, Bones is ever going to try and resist or not. He doesn't even know if _he_ will, when his time comes. Spock had told them not to, not wanting to hurt them any more than he could help, but he'd also insinuated that resistance _was_ something pleasurable to a Vulcan in the throes of the fever - the thrill of pursuit and subjugation, of exercising physical dominance. For a bunch of stone-faced vegetarians with bowl cuts, Vulcans are almost hilariously predatory when it comes down to it.

But it's Bones' decision, and Bones wants to help, but Jim knows he's not stupid, either. What Bones does do is hook his heels around the backs of Spock's knees and arch up, with a sigh that devolves into a clenched-teeth moan as Spock mouths the spot at the base of his throat that he likes, that Jim's pressed his own lips to countless times to elicit just that response. Bones looks at Jim over Spock's tousled head, eyes conveying reassurance, and Jim lolls his head back against the wall and smiles, giving his cock a satisfying squeeze, thinking that maybe, it'll be no big deal. Spock's being a little more possessive than usual, sure, and he's definitely not all there, but there's none of the violence or madness they'd been expecting. Maybe he was just embarrassed about his biological need. Maybe they won't need those medical supplies.

Then Spock makes a sharp movement, suddenly stilling, and Bones yells " _Jesus!_ " in surprise, not pleasure, somehow managing to startle Spock enough to break his grip on his arms and roll himself away. He sits up on his knees on the mattress, breathing hard, and Spock grabs him by the forearms again and yanks him forward, growling low and angry. Jim straightens cautiously - he can see a thin, dark rivulet of blood making its way down Bones' chest from the bite mark on his left collarbone, and he winces. There's a livid smudge of Bones' blood on Spock's chin. God damn it.

“I'm gonna have to protest that one,” Bones drawls in a low voice, and the next second Spock has grabbed him and thrown him off the bed. Jim leaps to his feet as Bones lands hard on his side, but Bones scrambles back up quickly, panting, hair falling almost into his eyes and an errant drip of blood smeared in a streak across his stomach. Spock is too fast for either of them; before Bones really has his footing back, Spock shoves him into the nearest bulkhead with a swift, economical movement. Bones bounces off it with a thud, half-collects himself and shoves back with a sloppy move Jim recognizes from first-year hand-to-hand combat, catching Spock in the midsection with one elbow, though Spock does nothing but grunt at the impact.

There's no way this will end well. Jim can't just let it happen. Bones is a doctor, he's never been the best at self-defense, and Jim's an idiot for just letting him do this, letting him go first without knowing exactly what would happen. “Bones, I can -”

“ _Don't_ ,” says Bones sharply without taking his eyes off Spock's face. He plants his feet wide like he's readying for battle, all unselfconsciousness and long bare limbs. 

“You want me?” he says flatly.

Jim isn't so sure about this - and all his fears are realized when Spock hurls himself at Bones with a choked-off noise of rage, grabbing him by one arm and flinging him at the far wall like a rag doll. Jim stands tensed, pulse pounding in his throat, as Bones stumbles backward and hits with a grunt, arms flailing. His eyes are the greenest they ever get, and he clutches his arm, staring Spock down like he can't believe what's happening.

“Bones,” Jim rasps. “Please. Be careful.”

“Mine,” Spock says through clenched teeth as he advances, erection thrust forward like a saber, ridiculous and primal and everything Spock usually strives so hard not to be, tries to pretend doesn't exist, even in the bedroom. Bones exhales, lifts his chin and bares his bloody throat in a gesture of capitulation, nostrils flared and his bite wound still oozing. He can't resist much longer without doing himself some serious damage, and he and Jim both know it.

The few ornaments attached to the bulkhead rattle as Spock grabs Bones by the shoulders and slams him back with a hard, painful-sounding thud, and then Spock is pressed full against him, pinning his wrists over his head again, this time one-handed, and working the other hand down between their bodies.

He snarls something in Vulcan, in a voice that raises goosebumps on Jim's skin and makes his cock twitch. Bones seems transfixed, throat working as he swallows, toes curling on the carpet.

There's a loud rip, and Spock casts the remnants of Bones' boxer shorts aside. Jim, gaping, can see Bones crack a sudden crooked smile, eyes wide and faintly dazed. “Now that's more like it,” he says, then yelps again, as Spock flips him around and shoves a knee between his legs. A few sharp searching jabs of his hips, an indrawn breath from Bones and then a little noise of discomfort - thank God for Bones' common-sense preparedness, Spock would have just gone in dry - and he's inside, beginning to fuck him hard against the bulkhead, and Jim, stepping backward again until his legs hit the chair and he drops back down, has to remind himself he needs to breathe to stay alive. Spock's teeth are gritted and his cheeks and ears are burning a brighter, truer green than Jim's ever seen them, and his hands are tight enough on Bones' hip and on his wrists that Jim can envision the bruises his fingers will leave. Bones is gasping like he's running uphill; his fingers clench and unclench reflexively, wrists still clamped tight above his head, but there are no handholds on the smooth wall, and nothing for him but to ride out Spock's furious pace.

“Wow,” Jim mutters in guilty enjoyment. Spock, usually so consciously quiet during sex, is making noises deep in his throat, animalistic, with every slam of his hips against Bones' ass - Jim slouches, pushes his sweatpants down and spreads his knees, starting to jerk off for real, because fuck energy and _fuck_ smart, with this kind of inspiration he's pretty damn sure he'll be up for it again no problem when his turn comes around. His hand tightens around his cock when Bones starts talking, breathless and slurred, as he curses and begs and ruts against the wall and is lifted almost off his feet with the force of each of Spock's thrusts. The mingled smells of sex and incense are thick on the air, and Jim wonders vaguely, as he bites his lip and bucks up into his fist, if the filtration system is sending it out through the ship, if the entire crew can smell what's going on in here, if they're getting unknowingly blasted with a wave of pheromones and subconsciously turned on by it. God. The captain jerking off to his first officer mindlessly fucking his CMO, the shit fit the brass would throw - Spock's pace grows stuttered, uneven as Jim's right hand moves fast and slick with his own fluids, and Jim knows when Bones is about to come by the way his eyes screw shut and his jaw clenches, hard, tendons in his neck standing out.

The moan Bones lets out at orgasm is akin to a sob - his body stiffens, then sags, all the tension gone out of it, and Jim jerks himself harder, faster, as Spock, sweat pouring down him, slams Bones against the wall a few final times, hand on the scruff of his neck, looking like he's almost crushing him, and comes, silently, shaking.

Just another few strokes, a press of his thumb where it's most sensitive and a tug-squeeze on his balls and Jim's over the edge with them, his vision going hazy-gray around the edges as his orgasm rolls over him, so intense that his arm drops bonelessly to his stomach before it's even over, come spilling over his hand and striping his t-shirt. He gasps in a chestful of air as soon as he's able, slumping and closing his eyes briefly in relief, and when he opens them again, Spock's knees have buckled, and Bones has turned to catch him around the waist, muttering reassurance to him. Jim yanks up his pants and wipes his hand and arm on his shirt and though his legs feel like spaghetti, he and Bones manage to get Spock back over to the bed, laying his limp body down on his back. Bones cleans him off with an antibacterial wipe from his medkit, and Jim pulls the blanket back over him, and then it's Bones' turn to collapse on the foot of the bed, gingerly curling up on his side and cupping himself with a wince.

“Hopefully that took the edge off.”

Pulling his soiled shirt off inside-out and tossing it aside, Jim sits down beside them and smooths Bones' hair off his face. It's stringy and damp, and Bones is still flushed all over, his eyes half-lidded, one cheek and ear looking abraded from being scraped against the bulkhead. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” Bones says hoarsely. “Peachy. Grab me my stuff, would you?” He pushes himself up to a sitting position as Jim hands him the kit, and Jim can see the bite marks, several crusted over with drying blood, and the bruises that are beginning to bloom as reddened patches all over him: his wrists and forearms, and his knees and elbows and back and probably his ass. No sign of any more bleeding from anywhere, but his dick is probably half-raw from rubbing on the wall, too. Jim feels a surge of angry blood in his cheeks - though it wasn't Spock's fault, and Spock would be angrier with himself than anyone if he realized right now what he's done. 

As Jim wipes the remnants of blood from Bones' chest and belly and holds up the dermal regenerator to the worst of the bites, Bones reaches up and strokes his jaw softly with two fingers. It's more touchy-cuddly than Jim's used to getting from him, and he leans into it, welcoming it. “It's strange,” Bones murmurs. He sighs, a thoroughly worn-out sound. “I know he told us it would be like this, but it's still...not right.”

“Yeah. I saw.”

“More'n just saw, I think.” Jim closes his eyes briefly, flushing even harder, and lets Bones thumb his lips like an undeserved blessing. “C'mon. Not like you haven't jerked off in front of us before.”

“It's not that,” Jim says quickly. Bones doesn't push for clarification. They're quiet for a few minutes, as Jim erases the angriest-looking marks one by one, formulating an answer in his head. “I just don't know if I wanna think about what it says about me that I got off to one mentally messed-up -” _mate?_ “- partner pounding the other one into raw hamburger,” he finally says. “I mean, it's a little...” Like he isn't messed up enough. Add it to the bottom of the laundry list.

Bones' mouth twitches a little wryly. The regen beeps, signaling the completion of its healing cycle.

“Wasn't anything I didn't sign up for. And it's not like I didn't get anything out of it, judging by that wall, which...” Bones pulls a face. “We'll definitely have to sanitize.”

Jim lets out a short laugh despite himself, and regards Bones' newly healed collarbone for a moment, pink and smooth, marks gone but not forgotten. “We'll have him back when this is all over,” he says, trying to console himself.

“Yeah. We'll have him back.” It sounds flat when Bones says it, like he's uttered those words to himself so many times before that they've lost all meaning. Jim's gaze darts up to his face, but Bones' eyes are on Spock.

“The important thing is to get him through it. Right?” He leans in and kisses Bones on the mouth, breathing in the smell of his sweat and Spock's mingled, salt-heady. It's all he can do. “Go shower,” he says against Bones' lips, “and sleep for a while. How long d'you think he'll be out?”

“I don't know.” They both look down at Spock, lying motionless once more, his usually neat hair mussed and his mouth very slightly open, lips dark and chapped. From the tenting of the blanket, it appears he's already half hard again. He'll probably be awake soon, then. Bones pats Spock's leg with a tenderness he'd never show Spock were he awake - stubborn bastards, the both of them, as self-conscious when it comes to positive emotion as they are free with gripes and insults and sarcasm. Jim had never thought _he'd_ be the one to be the ray of fucking sunshine in a relationship. “You should clean up, too.”

There's a water shower, First Officer's perk, but they each take a quick sonic instead to save time. Jim lingers in the head a few minutes to lube again, carefully opening himself up on two, then three fingers. Not that elegant or comfortable, sitting around feeling like he's leaking, but he'd rather be prepped than not. When he comes back out, Spock hasn't moved a millimeter, and Bones is sitting slumped on the end of his bed again, still naked, eyes barely open and head bowed. Orgasms really tend to take it out of him, even when they're not combined with being tossed around. Jim pulls him over to the cot they'd set up earlier, by Spock's desk on the other side of the divider, and makes him eat one of the protein bars they'd brought with them. They crack open a bottle of the fruit-flavored electrolyte water that Jim likes and Bones despises but drinks anyway, passing it back and forth.

Bones is curled up asleep by the time Jim hears Spock stirring again. Jim creeps over to the bed and leans over him, wanting to be close but wary after seeing the way Spock had manhandled Bones earlier. When Spock's eyes open a slit, Jim smiles with broad, forced cheerfulness. “Morning, Commander. Good nap?”

“J-” Spock's throat bobs. “Jim,” he whispers. “Leonard.”

Jim nods, combing his fingers gently through Spock's odd slippery-coarse hair. He's still burning up, the heat rising palpably off his skin. “Leonard's fine. He's sleeping. Your crazy Vulcan wall sex wore him out.”

“Hm.” His eyes drift closed. Jim stays very still, but Spock doesn't show any signs of stirring again. Apparently this wasn't it. His power cells, as it were, aren't recharged all the way yet. _Illogical,_ Spock would say in answer to that, just to exasperate him. _Vulcan physiology may not be identical to that of a human's, but I am hardly an automaton._

Then Bones would scoff and say something like _Could've fooled me._ And if they were alone, Spock might take his face in his hands and kiss him hard, just to shock him, and then say _I trust I have convinced you otherwise, Doctor._ And Bones would raise an eyebrow, flustered and unable to come up with a response for once, and Jim would laugh at them both.

Jim lies on his side across the foot of the bed with a muffled sigh, pillowing his head on his hands, looking down at a dark patch of blood on the light carpet and hoping this _pon farr_ thing will be over sooner rather than later.

*

He hadn't meant to fall asleep there, but he wakes on his stomach some time later, abruptly, a surprised cry still vibrating his vocal cords. The stifling weight of a body is holding him down, and it's a moment of blind panicked thrashing before realization kicks in - _Spock_ \- and when he gets his hands flat on the mattress to push up, the weight retreats. “Spock?” he pants. “Bones!”

“I'm here, Jim,” Bones' voice answers from somewhere behind him, and Jim experiences just a moment of guilty relief before he feels Spock's hands hauling him up by his hips. No, wait - one hand on his hip, and the fingers of the other one crawling spider-like up the side of his neck, positioning themselves on his temple, cheek, jaw. He's wanting to meld, and Jim doesn't know if it's a good thing or not in this scenario. He tries to relax as he's practiced, to let the connection form without struggle and let Spock's thoughts tentatively reach out and twine with his own. He's getting better at opening his mind up, but Bones is right, it _is_ different. It isn't Spock; it's barely-reined chaos, a swirl of fire-orange madness that emanates from the hotspots of Spock's fingers. Jim's finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden with the feeling of warm wind buffeting his face, grit and spice and the smell before a dust storm, daylight thick and oppressively amber through a clouded atmosphere - but he's never felt a dust storm, or seen one - as the heat from Spock's hand infiltrates his brain, tendrils of it crawling under his skin, spreading through his nervous system, infecting him, arousing him -

“Spock,” he gasps -

\- _double your pleasure, double your fun,_ Jim sometimes jokes after a successful sex meld has washed him up on the shore, left him quivering with the last vestiges of echoed sensation -

The sand is blinding him and he cries out helplessly, knowing with ridiculous certainty his skin is going to split open and everything he is will spill out red and angry over the white sheets, and he wraps his legs in a death grip around his mate's strong waist, nails digging into soft flesh, blood pulsing. His mate is here, body pressing him down and eyes black. Spock. His mate is there, warm and angry and trembling at his side. Bones. Yes, yesyesyes _more_.

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” he hears Bones say, far off in the distance, but he can't quite understand what it means. And that's the last semi-coherent thought he has for a while.

*

Jim chokes like he's just broken the surface of an ocean. A trickle of something - sweat, hopefully - runs down his temple, but his limbs feel like lead, and he can't reach up to wipe it away. “B-Bones. What -”

“Here,” he hears Bones say, wearily, and Jim registers first that he's hot and sticky all over and his ass burns the way it only does after a seriously rough reaming, and second, the fact that he's lying with the both of them, Bones and Spock, curled around him, one on each side, his own personal furnace. _Mates,_ his mind echoes, unbidden, and he shifts his weight uncomfortably. When rolls over onto one hip, he sees Bones is dressed in a t-shirt and shorts now and has an impressive purple shiner around one eye socket, to go with the invisible collection he's already amassed. “Better?”

“What happened to you?” Jim rasps.

“Your knee,” Bones sighs, and Jim frowns as he tries to remember. He can't recall much. “Don't ask. Apparently _pon farr_ can be _infectious_. The mind meld. Of-fucking-course.” Jim reaches up to touch Bones' bruise apologetically, and Bones winces and smacks his fingers away. “Don't do that, damn it.”

“I'm sorry,” says Jim, voice small and contrite. “I don't remember. I went nuts, too?”

“It was like I had two cases of fever on my hands. Thank fuck you took it out on each other'n not me.”

Jim still feels the heat on his face, can still almost smell the stinging desert wind. Spock must have spilled a little more into his mind than he'd realized he would. But Jim shivers nonetheless, prickling all over. "Well, I think I'm me again." He feels around behind himself to touch whatever bit of Spock he can reach first, which happens to be his thigh. Spock's skin is damp and tacky, but noticeably cooler than it had been earlier, and his breathing feels steady and calm against Jim's back. “That's it?” Jim ventures. “Is he coming out of it?”

Bones makes a tiny movement like a shrug. “I can't be sure,” he says cautiously. “He said he didn't know how long it would last with two...partners...but his vitals were looking better an hour ago. I'm thinkin' he's over the hump -” Jim can't suppress a helpless snigger, and Bones smacks him on the leg. “Melding with you seemed to help a lot, though God knows how the inside of your childish head would be any help to anyone.”

His relief is making him punchy, as it usually does. But Jim likes him punchy. It's light years better than worried. “Don't be mean.”

“I'm never mean, I just tell the truth,” Bones gripes. But it's only a perfunctory gripe, born of habit, as he rolls over and reaches down the edge of the mattress for something. He comes up with a new bottle of fortified water, purple this time. “Drink. Don't choke.”

“I'm twenty-seven. I've actually mastered the art of consuming liquids.” Jim forces himself to sit up anyway, and takes a long cool chemical-sweet gulp, passing it back to Bones when he's done. He checks the wall chrono as he wipes his mouth off on the back of his hand; it's just past 0800. It's only been five hours. “I think I'll check in with the bridge, see if everything's going okay.”

“You do that. I'm gonna check Spock's vitals again.”

Jim gingerly pulls on his discarded pants - he just feels better comming the bridge with at least one article of clothing on, even if he isn't on video - and heads around the partition to the console. The chat is brief and mostly perfunctory ship's business, but though they've ensured that almost nobody outside this room knows exactly what's happening, apart from a vague inkling that it has something to do with Vulcan stuff and Spock being a little _off_ , the relief is thick in Scotty's voice when Jim assures him that everything is going fine. Spock has more friends aboard this ship than he often realizes.

After making sure the audio link is definitely disconnected, Jim pads back out to find Bones on his hands and knees, determinedly scrubbing his blood off the carpet with some antibacterial wipes from his kit. Jim doesn't know if it's the lingering echo of Spock in his brain or just his own libido, but he watches Bones' bicep contract and his glutes shift under the thin dark-blue fabric of his shorts and has to tell himself that it probably wouldn't be in anybody's best interest right now if he pushed Bones onto his back like a bug and deep-throated him until he screamed loud enough to wake Spock up to join in.

No. Best to hold off on that.

Jim rubs a slightly quavering hand over his warm face a couple of times, pinching the bridge of his nose before he speaks. “We do have maintenance staff who could get that out in literally three seconds, you know.”

“I prefer to clean up my own bodily fluids.” Bones sits back on his heels and crumples up the used wipe. “Everything's fine?”

“Everything's good.”

“And nobody...” Bones lets the sentence trail off. Jim shakes his head.

“Nobody except Uhura.”

Bones gets to his feet with a sigh and a creaking of joints, scrubbing off his hands and tossing the used wipes down the disposal unit in the wall. “I know you talked to her about it. I wanted to, but I just felt awkward.” He makes a face as he sits down at Spock's feet.

Jim gets the sentiment. “Yeah. Well, I'm not gonna pretend it wasn't. 'Hey, so, Lieutenant, your old boyfriend is going into heat soon, any pointers?'”

“Fuck's sake, I hope you didn't actually say that,” says Bones, shaking his head. “Did she know this was gonna happen? Did Spock tell her?”

Before she'd even said a word, just her face when she'd listened to Jim haltingly explain the situation had been enough. The fractional widening of her brown eyes, the stiffening of her already-straight spine, the way her hands had tightened on her knees. Uhura is a master of communication, both verbal and physical, but she has her helpless cues the same as anyone else, and he'd known automatically that she knew what was up.

“He'd mentioned it to her once - she said that when they were together, she used to wonder what would happen if Spock's time came, if she had to handle it by herself. He didn't want to talk any more about it.” Jim thinks of Uhura with her lithe frame, and the way Spock had so easily slammed tall, solid Bones into the wall until his teeth had rattled, and wondering if the presence of female pheromones - human or Vulcan - would have made any difference. Maybe, maybe not. It's just another question to save for later. Or never. “She said she's glad there are two of us. So we can take care of him and each other. And she wished us good luck.”

Words murmured evasively in Swahili, fingertips skimming his shoulder as she'd stood and moved toward the door. It had been a complicated situation, Uhura and Spock, one Jim and Bones are still mostly in the dark about. It isn't bitterness, or anger. They can all work together, drink together, collaborate and go on away missions and sit around the briefing table together. But sometimes Uhura just doesn't find it easy to be direct with any of them when it comes to their relationship, and Jim doesn't blame her, since he still feels the same way most of the time. That was why she'd needed to say it in her own words. At least he'd gotten the sentiment, even if he doesn't have the language.

“Good,” says Bones. “That's good.”

*

Jim is on all fours on the bed. His eyes are closed, his forehead pressed to the damp pillow under him, and there is nothing beyond this:

He hears Bones urging him on, telling him how well he's taking it, how beautiful he is, and there is a calloused hand sliding up his left side that must belong to Bones, because Spock's hands are latched onto his hips as he drives into Jim's body over and over, bent so low over his back Jim can feel the tickle-scrape of chest hair with every thrust.

Bones' fingers close around his cock, and Jim's groan trails off into something higher and more desperate when Spock's right hand leaves his hip and then his fingers join Bones', two warm sticky hands around him, squeezing and stroking him in a perfect counterpoint to the piston of Spock's dick, the bruising pound of his pelvis against Jim's ass. Giving, not just taking anymore, sensing Jim needs the stimulation. Spock's in there, somewhere. Jim babbles something incoherent even to his own ears, back arching convulsively, and Spock grunts and speeds his thrusts, Bones murmuring to him soft and throaty - like they're in his brain and this is for him, like together they know just what he needs.

Then, Jim remembers, they kind of are.

*

The standard-issue bed of a Constitution-class cruiser is no place for two tall men at once, much less three. Clearly an oversight on Starfleet's part. When surface area is at a premium, it's just common sense to start stacking, which is exactly what they do. After a little maneuvering and wriggling around, they wind up with Spock lying on the bottom, Bones straddling him and Jim nudged up behind him, holding Bones' hips and chin hooked over Bones' shoulder as Bones lowers himself onto Spock with a wince at the corners of his eyes and a groan in his chest.

“Easy, go easy.” Jim strokes Bones' cock, Spock's always-surprisingly furry stomach, and after a few moments to adjust Bones starts to roll his hips, rising and falling nice and easy like Jim had said. Spock's head tips back, mouth open, looking languidly out from behind the thick screen of dark lashes. “ _Fuck,_ you two are gonna be the death of me, you know that?” whispers Jim.

Bones stiffens at his choice of words, breath halting, and Jim realizes what he's said and kisses him on the corner of his stubbled jaw in apology. Sometimes Bones gets like that. He doesn't have the capacity to compartmentalize when it comes to this, Jim thinks; to forget, forcibly push the memories away with ill-timed jokes or thoughtless turns of phrase or self-harm. Bones isn't quite that kind of fucked-up yet. Jim and Spock intend that he never will be.

“I'm sorry, forget I said it.”

“Don't, Jim.” Bones grasps Jim's forearm and holds on, pressing it to his middle like he's never letting go. At the same time, Jim sees his grip on Spock's shoulder tighten. “Not when we're doing this, alright. I don't want to think about it now.”

Spock's fingers spasm and dent the flesh of Bones' thighs, as if his body is responding to vibrations of discomfort in the air, the shift in mood. Then his right hand comes free and hovers trembling in the air between their bodies. “I need,” he whispers hoarsely. “Your mind. To - my mind.”

“Okay.” Bones' movement only falters for a moment. He frees Jim's arm, leans forward until he and Spock lie chest-to-chest, then turns his cheek to Spock's shoulder and closes his eyes, trusting as a child as Spock's fingers brush over his ear and come to rest at his temple. His hips still move slightly, their bodies still joined; a slow, shallow undulation. Jim crawls carefully up to lie alongside Spock, Bones' hand seeking his out, and Spock's arm curls warmly around the back of his neck, his hand groping unsteadily until his fingers are where he wants them to be on Jim's face. The circuit of three is complete. 

Jim closes his eyes and opens himself and feels Spock, a white-noise morass of _turmoil_ and _arousal_ and _weariness_ and above it all a piercing, discordant note of _guilt-regret-loathing_ combined. “No, Spock,” he protests gently, opening his eyes to see Spock is staring right at him, eyes black as space, everything he cannot put into words there on his face and in his mind. Jim levels his gaze sternly and tries to project. _Acceptance. Comfort. Relief._

“You don't - understand,” Spock says, eerily clear and strong, himself yet unlike himself, as if filtered through layers of delirious memory. In his voice Jim can almost recognize the forcefulness of Uhura, a distinctly Bonesian petulance, even a faint, painful reverberation of the level commanding tone of Christopher Pike.

“No. Listen to Jim,” says Bones, profile furrowed as he concentrates, so much that he has stilled completely without noticing. Jim feels an unusually strong echo of him in there, and gropes after it, trying to hold on, wanting to comfort him, too. He can't always, but he likes being able to feel Bones' emotions, if only secondhand with Spock as a conduit. He and Bones had both tested close to psi-null at the Academy, only the very low, almost-negligible levels of sensitivity most humans possess. Alone, they wouldn't be able to see into each other's minds if they knocked their foreheads together for a week. But now, it's possible to separate the emotional strands and tell who is the source of what - Spock is a roiling morass of confusion, and Bones is loudly and helplessly projecting a mixture of devotion and anxiety. He not only feels them, he sees them, in a way difficult to describe even to himself. The first time they'd done this, it had been immediately apparent to Jim, the images and physical sensations conjuring themselves up although the experience of the meld is nothing so clear-cut in itself. But when he'd opened his eyes, these had been the afterimages, the sensations left to him, like lingering ghosts of light behind closed eyelids: Spock the total embrace of cool deep water. Bones a steady flame, crackling-bright. What he himself might be, he has no idea. He's never dared to ask. He isn't sure he wants to know. Maybe he's nothing.

He shouldn't have thought it. Somewhere on the edge of his consciousness, Bones lets out a noise like a sob through gritted teeth, and the mental volume of Spock's misery only increases.

“It's okay,” Jim whispers once more, covering Spock's hand with his, not knowing who he's talking to. “It's all okay.”

“Leonard.”

Bones lifts his tousled head at Spock's sudden croak of his name. There are tears in his eyes.

“I must - too much.” He pushes against Bones' chest and Bones slides backward, Spock's softening penis easily slipping free of his body. Bones maneuvers to lie down on his back next to them with a little grunt of discomfort, erection bobbing at half-mast. He's tired, Jim knows. They're all tired, mentally and physically. They've been tired for a long time.

“Okay.”

“I think he's back,” says Jim, stroking one pointed eyebrow with the backs of his fingers. “Spock?”

“Too much,” Spock repeats in a murmur, his eyes closed. His hands drop from Jim's cheek, then from Bones', and he sighs, fever finally broken. 

Bones looks up and meets Jim's eyes, and when Jim smiles, he smiles tentatively back.

*

They drink and rest, sweat cooling on their bodies and their tense muscles relaxing into comfortable soreness. Jim, reclining against the wall with his legs stretched out and Spock's head against his hip, looks down and sees a somnolent Bones with his head on Spock's chest and his hand pressed to Spock's abdomen, over the left side where his heart is. There's movement in Bones' hair; Spock's hand, combing through the thick strands over and over before sliding down to curve possessively around the nape of his neck. Spock's eyes are closed, his face still a little flushed but lax and peaceful. It's enough - it's _so much_ \- the sight of the two of them here like this, that something in Jim aches with a fierce longing he can't put words to at all, a pang of happiness and fear that brings a stinging warmth to his eyes and makes him turn his face away to take a deep, calming breath.

A touch on his leg makes him look down again. Spock is gazing up at him, upside-down. “Are you familiar with the Vulcan term _t'hylara_?” he asks, the first complex sentence he's strung together in a day, and Jim shakes his head, blinking. Vulcan was never his best language. Spock's eyelids droop closed again. “One day I will explain it to you.” Bones, always a light sleeper, snorts and mumbles something unintelligible, moving like he's about to wake. But he settles down again when Jim leans down and whispers into his ear.

 _T'hylara._ It's a graceful word - it sounds like it could be music.

“You are the sun,” Spock mumbles, sounding half-asleep, and Jim glances up, startled.

“What?”

He doesn't get an answer. But it's all right - he doesn't need one.

*


End file.
